Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Government cannot be accused, in fairness, of lacking ambition when it comes to spin doctors and advisers. It is set to break all previous records. In September, we were told there were a total of 64 special advisers costing more than €3 million a year. Now we have seen the Government bring in a new press secretary on up to €160,000 a year. This new spin doctor has come from the Murdoch media empire. He was previously the managing editor of The Sunin the UK, a newspaper renowned for its racism, sexism and, of course, the disgusting lies it told about the Hillsborough disaster. He was forced to apologise for an article that compared migrants to cockroaches and "a plague of feral humans". He apologised for errors in a completely inaccurate and racist article, which had the front page headline that one in five British Muslims had sympathy for jihadis. He declined to apologise for a cut-out and keep guide to what terrorists look like. Again, there are no prizes for guessing that cut-out and keep guide was racist. It does not bode very well for the Government's professed opposition to divisive politics. How does it square with that? On top of the bill for advisers and refusing to pay student nurses is the decision to restore the pensions of the likes of Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny who are former taoisigh. How can this be justified?

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